What is GCC's Attendance & Participation Policy

All distance education courses currently follow the GCC Attendance and Drop Policy

GCC’s Policy Guidelines

Students are expected to attend all class
meetings. There are no authorized absences from class and irregular
attendance may result in exclusion from classes.

It is the student’s responsibility to
register properly for classes. A student who fails to enroll officially
in a class will not be given credit for that class.

Students also have the responsibility of
officially withdrawing from college or dropping from class when they
stop attending, and of observing established deadlines. Otherwise, “F’’
grades may be assigned.

It is the responsibility of each student
to know the attendance and absence policy of each class in which he or
she is enrolled. It is the responsibility of each instructor to inform
his or her class of the attendance and absence policies at the beginning
of each semester.

Students shall be dropped from class for failure to attend the first
class meeting during the first week of instruction if they have not made
prior arrangements with the instructor.

Students also may be dropped for continuous or cumulative absences
for the number of hours a sixteen-week class is scheduled to meet in a
two-week period.

What this means for distance education

Students in distance education courses are
required to ‘attend’ class and participate just as if they were in a
face-to-face course. This means that instructors set up guidelines for
how much each lecture, reading assignment, discussion or project
qualifies as a meeting during the course of a week/learning unit/course
module.

Students who do not participate in class, that is, who consistently
do not complete assignments, quizzes, respond to forums or turn in other
work, should be notified that they may be dropped from the class for
non-participation.

It is important that online and hybrid instructors should be very
clear in their syllabus about what constitutes participation and late
work.